The proliferation of the “sticky note” or Post-it® note is well known. Many desktops and computer monitors are practically hidden by the small yellow note sheets. Like many office products, the sticky note has been recreated electronically on the computer.
A variety of applications exist for creating electronic notes on the computer desktop. These applications range from full-featured word-processing applications, such as Microsoft® Word, to note software, such as 3M Company's Post-it® note software. Often these notes, paper or electronic, contain date-specific information. In some cases, the date-specific information includes information a user wishes to enter into a calendar.
Increasingly, individuals store their calendar in an electronic format. Many conventional platforms and applications support electronic calendaring. Examples include Interact Commerce Corporation's ACT!™ 2000 and Microsoft® Outlook. These applications comprise an array of functions, including the entry of specific events.
Conventionally, creating event entries in an electronic calendar application by using information entered in a note-entry application can be both difficult and time-consuming. Often, the only method for transferring the data from the note-entry application to the calendar application is a manual process.
For example, a supervisor receives a call and begins taking notes in a note-entry application. As a result of a portion of the conversation, the supervisor desires to schedule a meeting involving twenty subordinates. The supervisor attaches the note to an email message and sends the message to the twenty subordinates. To create an electronic-calendar entry containing the relevant information from the supervisor, each user must (1) open the note-entry sent by the supervisor; (2) create a calendar entry on the appropriate date in their electronic calendar; and (3) cut and paste the text from the note-entry application into the text attribute of the calendar entry.
A supervisor may also simply wish to have an administrative assistant create a calendar entry. The supervisor enters the text in a text email message and sends to the message to the administrative assistant. The administrative assistant must then manually create an electronic calendar entry comprising the information.
Manual processes such as this are often error prone. Errors in the data may result in an event being entered on the wrong date and/or with the wrong textual information. If these errors result in missed appointments or deadlines, they may cause a variety of problems, including loss of revenue and embarrassment.
But manual entry is not the sole option available to the user for creating calendar entries in electronic-calendar software. An alternative is to enter the note directly into the calendar application on the appropriate date. Also, some conventional note-entry applications support the setting of alarms for a note. Although the alarm does not appear on the user's calendar, the user is able to specify date information for a note.
These conventional approaches to creating calendar entries from electronic sticky notes present many disadvantages. These disadvantages include the likelihood of error, the lack of flexibility, and duplication of both time and effort.
Entering date and non-date information directly into a calendar application is an approach that is limiting to the user in terms of both flexibility and practicality. For example, calendar entries in conventional calendar applications include a plurality of text entry fields that a user can use for additional information, such as notes. Conventional calendar applications also include an electronic-notes section that can be categorized and linked to contacts, not to a date. The disadvantage of this approach is that in order to take advantage of the text fields in conventional electronic calendar, the user must use the calendar program whenever the user is taking notes. This may not be convenient or practical.
Not all notes result in the creation of a calendar entry. Thus, for any note entered into the calendar portion of a conventional calendar application that is not date-related, the user will have to dispose of or copy the note to another application, resulting in the duplication of time and effort.
Conventional electronic calendar applications provide various alternative means for note entry; however, these alternatives also fail to satisfy the need for a simple method and system for creating calendar entries from note entries. For example, many conventional calendar applications include an application for note-entry. Such conventional note-entry applications act as on-screen scratchpads, allowing a user to enter a note and then, if necessary, attach the note to a contact. Unfortunately, entries in such conventional note-entry applications cannot be used to automatically generate a calendar entry; the calendar entry must still be created manually.
Another option for creating calendar entries from electronic notes is to use a separate application to extract information from a note-entry application and to create a corresponding calendar entry. Various applications exist for performing an analogous procedure to extract and create address entries. For example, various applications exist for extracting address information from text files. Conventional versions of ListGrabber and AddressGrabber extract information from a text file, parse the information, and create entries in an electronic address book (ListGrabber and AddressGrabber are produced by eGrabber Inc., a Saratoga, Calif. corporation.). Although these applications are useful for creating electronic address entries, they do not address the need of users to create electronic-calendar entries.
Another option that a user has in conventional software is to add alarms to notes within the note-entry application. An alarm causes the computer to emit some type of message to the user. The alarms are analogous to reminders in a conventional calendar application, which emits a visual and/or aural message to remind a user of a particular event or appointment based on user-specified parameters. 3M company's Post-it® Notes software conventionally allows a user to add such alarms to notes. The primary disadvantage of this approach to creating calendar entries is that the users calendar entries are no longer in a single application, i.e., the user cannot access a single application to determine all of the events that have occurred or that are scheduled to occur on a particular date.
A system and method of creating calendar entries based on entries in a note-entry application is needed to minimize errors and to eliminate the duplication of time and effort inherent in conventional approaches.